20060208

i made this fudgy chocolate layer cake for esa's birthday, and although iknowmywayaroundacupcake, i'm not so good at decorating big cakes--what do i do with all that flat space? i found a solution in those little mini bars of chocolate and boxes of candy i received at christmas that i never eat, even if they are a good brand. just dump a bunch on top (or, yes, artfully arrange), you hide a multitude of frosting misshaps, and someone's bound to be pleased. the cake itself was at once light and spongey, yet moist and fudgy from all the cocoa, buttermilk and coffee. the frosting was smooth and weirdly pudding-like, all chocolate goo and only mildly sweet. for those of you in the philippines that have tried polly's chocolate cake (quite possibly the best cake i've ever eaten that was bought from a gas station), this cake has the same texture and a similar taste, and the frosting is dead-on the same (although it could be the chocolate i used, bought in manila, and frightening cheap--55 pesos, about US$1, a kilo--yet surprisingly good).

i had a little extra batter left over, so i made another cake, just in time for valentine's day. sweet and simple.

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hi kirk--not so much innovative as thrifty. i had a lot of candy lying about!

hi gail! actually, i just had another idea...hm. stay tuned!

i'm not much of a chocolate lover, ms.robyn, but this cake makes me want to eat chocos too.

hi cathy! actually, it was a lot easier to cut than i thought. the candies ringing the edge provide a natural guideline, and if you decorate the cake in a relatively orderly fashion, you can get an almost equal amount of chocolate candies on each slice. the thing that surprised me more was having to tell people to unwrap the foil candies first. all that sugar makes people a little crazy, i guess.

hi mila! wow, what a great idea. but i think it might be dangerous having all that chocolate cake so handy to road ragey drivers....although it might calm some of them down. you never know.

DISCLAIMER: this is a personal journal with no desires to be anything but. it contains my opinion with occasional fact thrown in; recipes have been tested where noted, in an unairconditioned kitchen in the tropics. YMMV. for my sake and yours, consult a professional!